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Ice Yacht - Pole of Cold MC 27028[Fragment Factory]

Tucked away on Snatch 3 (the last of the Snatch Tapes compilations) released in 1981 is a track by Ice Yacht called ‘0 Degrees North’. An austere piece of drum loop and drone music, there was talk of a full tape having been recorded by the band (?) but no documentation of any further releases can be found.

Rumour had it that Ice Yacht had embarked on an ill-fated trip to the North Pole attempting to retrace a journey made by the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen in 1888. This story was given credence when last year a research group uncovered a cassette tape in a vacuum-sealed case in the permafrost. The tape was marked simply Ice Yacht – Pole of Cold.

After letting the tape thaw out it was then baked in an oven allowing the transfer of the recordings. Pole of Cold contains six tracks of analogue electronics seemingly mapping an arctic exploration to the coldest place on the planet though exactly when and where they were recorded is unknown.